I have started my glow up journey for several years now, and recently I pondered over the question: if I could go back in time and advise my younger self on this journey, what would it be? What glow up tips would I have wanted to know before starting my own path?

Here are 5 glow up tips that will shift your mindset, and keep you on track for leveling up your life.

1. Glowing up is a lifestyle, not a race

One of the most important glow up tips I can give is this: glowing up is not a trend, or a season. It’s not a race. And it’s not just a 30-day challenge just before summer in order to get that “summer body” and make the boys jealous for losing you… That’s a mindset that is still geared in toxic beliefs, one which ties self-worth to external validation, and that’s not what we’re about.

Leveling up is about holistically improving every aspect of your life: body, mind, heart and soul. Certainly, it is whatever you make it to be, as long as it helps in your self-development, but its true value shows when you apply this growth mindset to your whole life.

As such, that’s when it becomes a lifestyle, a way of seeing things, and not just a trivial competition where you’re trying to prove something to a friend, colleague, or that cute guy down the street. It’s about you, selflove, and deciding that you deserve better, and doing whatever it takes to make that happen.

2. Leveling up will literally change your life

When you spend your whole life with certain values and limiting beliefs, with certain mental limitations, you get complacent in all areas of your life. You may think a 9-to-5 with mediocre pay is the most you can hope for, and so is a lukewarm relationship where “there are no red flags at least”.

But babe, when you consciously decide you deserve the best, and will have nothing less, from that moment on your life will change! No, truly.

Because from that moment you set a particular standard for your relationships, for your happiness, your career. And you don’t take no for an answer or settle for less. That level of self-commitment, confidence and selflove will spill over and shine over every area of your life.

3. Glowing up means confronting discomfort

This glow up tip is not everyone’s cup of tea. But the only way you can make better choices is by confronting the bad ones you have made so far. Confronting the discomfort, the painful realizations, the uncomfortable truths.

Sometimes, the hardest part about this step is forgiving yourself for putting up with so much BS, because the truth is it always starts from your mindset – sadly, if someone’s sense of self-worth is at rock-bottom, the list of mistreatment they will allow simply because they subconsciously believe they deserve it, is unbelievably long.

Challenging your comfort zone is essential to elevating your lifestyle. As they say, a paved road is comfortable to walk, but nothing grows there! In order to create new results, you have to try take new actions. Following the same old routines and habits will only lead you down the same road of mediocrity. Go big or go home, right? And indeed, challenging your comfort zone is one of the hardest things you can do in your glow up journey, but it is oh so incredibly rewarding. This can mean…

…Making those worrisome medical appointments you’ve been putting off since forever.

…Standing up to your family about a given thing in order to make your peace about something important to you. Something like your choice to marry or not, your sexuality, having more independence, or anything else.

…Deciding to finally go to therapy to get professional help to sort through any anxiety, depression, heartache, emotional turmoil or stressful events.

…Sitting down with yourself in raw honesty and acknowledging your choices, their consequences, and then deciding unequivocally that you want better, deserve better, and will do better.

…Realizing what was holding you back from success and abundance and the fulfillment of your dreams, was none other than yourself all along.

None of those things are comfortable or particularly breezy, trust me. But they are the first step to incredible changes. Positive changes! Changes that can transform your life in such amazing ways that one day you’ll have to pinch yourself to realize you’re not dreaming. It all starts with leaving your comfort zone.

4. It means curating your life continuously

What do I mean by this? It means curating your emotional, mental and physical space… ruthlessly & continuously.

Through my glow up journey, I realized just how, not only healthy, but absolutely necessary it is at any point in life to practice ruthless selectivity when it comes to my time. My energy. My physical, emotional and mental space.

I realized I don’t have to hold on to people or friendships that are no longer nurturing or joyful. I don’t have to stay in dead end jobs that are soul-deadening, just because “that’s the right thing to do because a job is a job”. There are other ways! There are better ways. And where there’s a will, there’s a way.

And last but not least, I don’t have to stay in toxic relationships, or unfulfilling ones, or even in ones where I just feel lukewarm. Lukewarm has never been enough for me. I love completely or not at all, and that’s just another way of honoring myself by not accepting anything less.

5. Glowing up means you can reinvent yourself

One of my favorite glow up tips is the realization that I get to recreate myself, over and over, as many times as I want, until I become my best self! And only I get to decide what that looks like. There’s no wrong or right, no permanency, no mistakes in this journey. I can start from scratch as many times as I want.

If it’s what you want, you can decide to go to Law and become a Dream Girl who hustles 3 sidejobs and marries rich. And then do a 90 degree switch and decide to move to Finland and flourish into a famous artist where nobody knows you and you can leave your past behind.

You can do whatever you want, so this is where you can and should let yourself go wild with excitement and do what will ultimately make your heart happy. Your happiness always comes first!

I hope these glow up tips help you on your journey to become your better self like they did for me. 💖